It's a new dawn, it's a new day... 8/09/07

...and I'm feeeeeeeeeeelin' good"

Me too, Nina.

The mind's an amazing thing. The ability to tie event to emotion and create meaning, to write single emotions into complex constructs, to hyperfocus on a construct so convincedly that it becomes a new reality.

And then, the mind's ability to supercede its own authority to say "no more, let it go, let it all go"...and away it washes, ashes on the tide.

Boggles the mind, doesn't it? It's no wonder we're all insane.

I used to say that i'm a survivor. I'm no victim, i'm a survivor, and i'll do what ever is necessary to survive. Then i realized, though, that calling oneself a survivor is just another way of calling oneself a victim. A victorious victim, to be sure, but a victim nonetheless.

I have no interest in being a victim - of my life, of my choices, of myself. I have no interest in choosing the mantra that allows me to dwell in the place that, at best, allows me to shed responsibility for my own path, and, at worst, makes me powerless over that responsibility.

I'm not a victim. I'm a navigator.

A navigator determines one's course. Sometimes, a navigator uses maps and compasses and GPS to chart the course, and other times, she just tastes the wind, watches the sun, and knows with full certainty that west is where she's got to be.

And sometimes, a navigator'll run her ship into the rocks, because it's better to risk it and swim, than to be lost at sea. Maps and compasses are little use during those times, but it's moot. The navigator can taste the salt on the wind, and on her cheeks, and she stays her course - 'cause the rocks might not kill you, but the ocean surely will.

Ten years have come and gone, since that day that created a life, and changed several more. Ten years of thinking and raging and praying and wishing and crying and laughing and hoping and thinking some more. Ten years of dazzling sunrises and mind-numbingly cold nights, of birthday cakes and cleaning out closets, of dancing grass and ash to ash.

Ten years. The more things change, the more they stay the same. And the more they stay the same, the more they all become new, again and again.

I miss you. He's even more beautiful than i promised you he'd be, and i'm better than either of us could have hoped for. I have friends, who get it, and lots who don't, but help me pass the time anyway, because they care. And still care when i walk away, 'cause i don't need them quite so much, and can navigate all by myself, sans rocks.

I'll see you in November. I'll bring the sand, just bring yourself.